CHARLESTON DURING THE CIVIL WAR 




BT 



THEODORE C. JERVEY 



Reprinted from the Annual Report of the American Historical Association 
for 1913, Volume I, pagea 167-176 




WASHINGTON 
1816 



. 



CHARLESTON DURING THE CIVIL WAR 



BY 



THEODORE C. JERVEY 



Reprinted from the Annual Report of the American Historical Association 
for 1913, Volume I, pages 167-176 




WASHINGTON 
1915 



,C+7 




X. CHARLESTON DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 



By THEODORE D. JEKVEY. 



167 



CHARLESTON DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 



By Theodore D. Jervey. 



Upon the request to prepare a paper for that session of the Ameri- 
can Historical Association which was to treat of military history I 
deemed it important to obtain from the chairman some suggestions 
of the scope of such, and was informed — 

that, on the whole, what we do want most knowledge about are the details 
of composition and organization of the southern armies. Who, for instance, 
were the men who officered the South Carolina regiments when the war broke out? 
How far did the militia organization serve? . . . We have the whole subject 
of Charleston during the war, and that in every aspect. . . . Blockade run- 
ning and its practical results. . . . All such topics are perfectly relevant. And 
the mere fact that information is difficult to get shows how much we need to 
look into these subordinate matters. For a title : " Charleston during the Civil 
War," or "Charleston's place (or role) in the Confederacy." Length, 25 to 30 
minutes. 

With these kind hints as a guide, within the limits, I shall attempt 
to discuss " Charleston during the Civil War " ; because it is a far less 
comprehensive title than the other and one permitting " side lights " 
to be flashed upon subordinate details, which might be accidentally 
in the reach of some of us who might well hesitate to reply to wider 
historical inquiries. 

As to the composition and organization of the southern armies, 
who officered the South Carolina regiments when the war broke out, 
and how far the militia organization served, particularly as pertain- 
ing to Charleston and its enviroments, the " Memoirs of the War of 
Secession," by Johnson Hagood, brigadier general, Confederate 
States Army ; " The Defense of Charleston Harbor," by John John- 
son, major, Confederate engineers; and "The Military Operations 
of General Beauregard," by Alfred Roman, A. D. C. and inspector 
general on the staff of Gen. Beauregard, all furnish quite an amount 
of valuable information, to which the preparation of the Confederate 
rolls at Columbia, S. C, will add even more; and a reference to these 
by me would be more appropriate than any attempt to summarize. 

It may be pointed out, however, as a fact of interest, that the lines 
by which Charleston was successfully defended during the four years 
of the war were constructed under the supervision, not only of that 
Confederate general whose attack on Sumter in 1861 opened the war, 

169 



170 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

but also of that great soldier whose surrender at Appomattox in 1865 
ended the struggle. But there are some other facts connected with 
the construction of these lines, which, if far less important, are not 
without their local significance. In the graduating class of West 
Point for the year 1838 the five stars were : First, William H. Wright, 
of North Carolina, assistant professor of mathematics; second, 
P. G. T. Beauregard, of Louisiana, assistant teacher of French ; third, 
James H. Trapier, of South Carolina, assistant teacher of French; 
fourth, Stephen H. Campbell, of Vermont, adjutant ; fifth, Jeremiah 
M. Scarritt, of Illinois, captain. 1 Of these five honor men, two, 
Beauregard and Trapier, were of French extraction, the one of a 
Catholic, the other of a Huguenot strain; but this does not seem to 
have affected in the slightest their intimacy, as subsequent events indi- 
cated. One of the first works in which Lieut. Trapier was engaged 
upon graduation was the construction of Fort Sumter, 2 which Beau- 
regard, some 23 years later, called upon to surrender. Trapier had 
resigned from the service in 1848, and was engaged in planting near 
Georgetown, S. C, at the outbreak of hostilities, when he immediately 
volunteered his services to his State, and later, as a major of engi- 
neers, was responsible for some of the work on the lines about the 
city. Indeed, Gen. Hagood, to whose valuable book attention has 
heretofore been called, does not hesitate to criticize adversely the 
work of Maj. Trapier with regard to the fortification of Coles Island, 
while excusing his superior, Gen. Beauregard, 3 under whose general 
orders the work was done. The point raised is an interesting one in 
military engineering, on which I think there may be a difference of 
opinion. With a distinct admiration for the sterling ability of Gen. 
Hagood, I am not satisfied that this criticism will stand as put, for 
if criticism is to be directed to the work it is apt to be found more 
applicable to the selection of Coles Island by Gen. Beauregard as a 
point of defense than to the fortifications there erected. Certain it is 
that to Beauregard the work of his old classmate must have been 
acceptable, for later, in 1863, when Maj. Trapier, raised to the rank 
of brigadier general, was in command of the fourth military district 
of South Carolina, with headquarters at Georgetown, as soon as it 
appeared that Charleston, not Georgetown, was the objective of the 
Federal fleet, he was withdrawn from Georgetown and assigned to 
the command of the second subdivision of the first military district 
at Sullivan's Island, where he gave the command for the first shot 
fired at the approaching ironclads. 4 

1 " Official Register Officers and Cadets," IT. S. Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., 
June, 1838. 

2 " Confederate Mil. Hist.," V, 421. 

3 Hagood, " Memoirs of the War of Secession," 57-59. 

4 Johnson, " Defense of Charleston Harbor," 48 ; " Military Operations of Gen. Beaure- 
gard," 47, 73. 



CHARLESTON DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 171 

Had military advancement in the armies of the Confederacy been 
entirely unaffected by family influence it would have indicated a dis- 
location of ideas which even war is not always able to break; and 
the fact that the ancestor of Maj. Trapier had, at the outbreak of 
the Revolutionary War, commanded a company of artillery at 
Georgetown, 1 S. C, no doubt helped to inspire confidence in the name. 
Advancement in the British Army had been for years before and 
continued for years after profoundly affected by family influence, 
which indeed has had not a few stout defenders, not the least among 
whom was that cultivated Charleston gentleman, Gabriel Mani- 
gault, whose ante bellum novel, "The Actress in High Life," affords a 
view of its workings during Wellington's peninsular campaigns. As 
an illustration of the psychological environment of the author in 
the fifties, this book is not without its interest to the historian, for it 
reveals to some degree the social atmosphere in which it was pro- 
duced, English to the core. Not only Charleston, but that great 
suburb which stretched from above Georgetown to the Savannah 
River along the rice plantations of the coast, a hundred miles and 
more, was English in sentiment, pronunciation, and prejudice. For 
three decades prior to the war the crowning aspiration of the region 
had been for direct trade with Europe. It was of the languishing 
commerce of Charleston that Hayne spoke with the greatest earnest- 
ness in the debate with Clay on the tariff of 1832, 2 which ushered in 
nullification. It was to secure this direct trade that he spent his last 
days at Asheville, N. C, in 1839, in the effort to push through the 
railroad from Charleston to Cincinnati. And it was for direct trade 
with Europe that southern convention after convention, from this 
date to 1860, vainly resolved. When direct trade did come, in all 
its fullness, in 1861, it came through the blockade runners; and 
it is therefore of " blockade running and its practical results " that 
this paper will treat. 

At first the blockade of the southern ports was far from effective, 
and in the earlier years of the war, at Charleston, the blockade run- 
ners, according to northern correspondents with the blockading fleet, 
came and went almost at will. 3 It was claimed in November, 1862. 
that the firm of John Frasier & Co., of Charleston, had, up to that 
time, shipped seven-eighths of the cotton that had gone from the 
ports of the Confederacy for some time prior thereto. 4 

Against objections to the trade it was affirmed b}' the Charleston 
Mercury that in making up the return freight of the blockade run- 
ners each steamer was first loaded with as much heavy freight for the 

1 MeCrady. " South Carolina in the Revolution, " 127. 

2 Jonathan Elliott, " Speech of Robert Y. Hayne, 1832." 

3 Scharf, "The Confederate Navy," 441. 
* Ibid., 468. 



172 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

government (Confederate) as she could with safety carry, and that 
the invoices of John Frasier & Co. were handed to the agents of the 
government and they were allowed to take whatever the government 
desired and fix the price themselves. As a concrete example, this 
paper declared that " the Minho had brought in 7,340 rifles, 2,100 
swords, 87 cases of ammunition, and 80 cases of caps." x From other 
sources it was gathered that by that year the house of John Frasier 
& Co. had made as much as $20,000,000, of which $6,000,000 was in- 
vested in Confederate bonds. 2 Nassau, in the Bahama Islands, and 
St. Georges, Bermuda, were the ports to and from which the Charles- 
ton blockade runners sailed, and from July, 1862, to June, 1863, it 
was declared that 57 steamers and 91 sailing vessels left Nassau for 
Confederate ports, of which 51 of the former and 55 of the latter 
landed their cargoes; and 44 steamers and 45 sailing vessels reached 
Nassau from the Confederacy during the same period. From Nassau, 
by the port of Charleston, it was said that the supplies of arms of the 
Confederacy had been drawn, 3 and from March 16 to April 10, 1862, 
there were noted at that port 14 arrivals and 6 clearances, among 
which appears the name of one of the most successful of all the run- 
ners, the Ella and Annie, consigned with some 10 or 11 others to 
Henry Adderley & Co. 3 In addition to accommodation for pas- 
sengers, this steamer was capable of carrying 1,300 bales of cotton 4 
and other freight. The government purchasing agent, Maj. E. 
Willis, quartermaster on the staff of Gen. Beauregard, is cited as the 
authority for the statement by the Detroit Free Press that for one 
purchase alone, from goods imported by blockade runners, the gov- 
ernment paid $7,500,000, and that purchases from $3,000,000 to 
$5,000,000 were not infrequent. 

The claim, however, that the capitalists of the trade were English- 
men 5 is not apparently borne out by original papers of one company 
in my possession, in which, at the final accounting in 1876, it would 
seem as if the bulk of the stockholders were Charlestonians, although 
shares were held in Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and New 
York. The assertion also of Mr. William Watson that, " while dur- 
ing the earlier years it [the trade] was chiefly carried on by swift 
steamers, running into Charleston and other ports of the Atlantic 
States, during the latter part of the war the traffic was confined ex- 
clusively to the Gulf of Mexico and the States bordering on its 
shores," 6 is incorrect, for, up to the very last of the war, the business 
was conducted on a considerable scale at Charleston by the " Import- 

1 Scharf, " The Confederate Navy," 468. 

2 Ibid., 470. 

3 Ibid., 473. 

* Letter of F. N. Bonneau, Dec. 15, 1864. 

B Scharf, " The Confederate Navy," 474. 

6 Watson, "Adventures of a Blockade Runner," preface. 



CHARLESTON DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 173 

ing & Exporting Co. of South Carolina," operating some 23 vessels, 
with a balance sheet running up into the millions, among the items 
of which appears a charge for " Government freight." 1 From the 
imperfect lists of vessels which have been tabulated previously, it 
would seem as if, for the four years, the number of vessels sailing 
from Charleston and Wilmington was about twice as great as the 
number noted from Galveston and four times as great as those from 
either Savannah or Mobile. How far the writer, M. Quad, may be 
depended on its problematical, but he is authority for the assertion 
that Charleston was the point where the purchasing agent of the 
Confederacy was stationed, and that 10 vessels ran in and out of 
Charleston to 1 leaving any other port. 2 But leaving these estimates 
and getting down to actual figures of original entry on the balance 
sheets of the Importing & Exporting Co. of South Carolina for 
February, March, and April, 18G5, we find the capital account of the 
company put at $1,000,000. To Nassau agents due $38,578.32; to 
Charleston agents, $110,352.16; to interest account, $12,799.10: divi- 
dend No. 3, $408,444.16; exchange account, $17,091,230.94. 

On the other side of the sheet are items indicating obligations of 
the Confederate government totaling $759,111.16; the house of 
John Frasier & Co., $100,000; the cost of two steamers, the 
Alice and the Fannie, $244,103.69 and $245,471.85, respectively; 
sundry steamers, evidently chartered, $256,548.27; disbursements of 
one steamer, the Ella, $2,211,440.58; cotton account, $1,355,940.98; 
cash account, $1,826,011.64; profit and loss account, $6,439,693.45, the 
totals varying from $19,798,516.49, in February, to $19,728,215, in 
April. 3 

By just what standards these figures must be measured to get at 
actual values is a matter of doubt. At first it would seem reason- 
able that the Confederate currency tables, carefully made out and 
preserved with the papers, and exhibiting the rate at which Confed- 
erate notes and Confederate money were exchangeable for gold from 
May, 1861, to April, 1865, as adopted by Virginia or ruling at 
Augusta, Ga., might be taken with some confidence; but, as will later 
appear, they can not be entirely depended upon, as, whatever the 
values of the items in these accounts, they must all have been meas- 
ured by the same standard, and from other papers I am enabled to 
arrive pretty closely at the values of some items noted in British 
pounds sterling. Apparently in February, 1864, the credit of the 
Confederate government was twice as good at Augusta, Ga., as in 
Virginia, Confederate notes being exchangeable in Virginia at that 

1 Duplicate I. & E. Co. in acct. current with Jas. M. Calder. 
- M. Quad, " Field. Fort, and Fleet," 266. 

3 Extracts from balance sheets, February, 1865, Importing & Exporting Co. of South. 
Carolina. 



174 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

time at $45.65 to $1 in gold ; at Augusta, $22.50 to $25 to $1 in gold. 1 
On an accounting with the South Carolina Kailroad upon the sale 
of the vessels above named, in which the railroad apparently had a 
tenth interest, the realization seems to have been at about 60 per 
cent of cost on the books. This again is in excess of the price as per 
contract in British pounds sterling. But some facts we can get at 
beyond dispute, viz, the price of the vessels as per contract between 
Capt. James Carlin, agent of the company, and William Denny & 
Bros., shipbuilders at Dumbarton, in the United Kingdom of Great 
Britain and Ireland, February 1, 1864, and the net proceeds of some 
of the cotton they subsequently carried across. For 1,173 bales, 
sacks, etc., shipped to Liverpool between June 30 and November 19, 
1861, the company was credited with £67,174-2-l. 2 What it paid 
for the vessels built in Great Britain at the close of the war, the 
following contract indicates: 

Dumbarton, 1st February 186% 
Captain James Carlin : 

Dear Sir: We offer to build you 2 Paddle Steamers 225 x 28 x 13, 54 oscil- 
lating Engines, Large Boilers having 401bs pressure. These Steamers to be 
adapted in every way for Blockade running. We also offer to build you one 
Paddle Steamer 255 x 34 x 16 (Ladd?) 65 oscillating Engines Large Boiler 
having 40 lbs pressure. This Steamer also to be adapted in every way for 
Blockade running and to have passenger accommodations similar to the smaller 
ones in proportion to size. Hull, i. e. Model and Scantiling and Outfit under 
your supervision and advice. Machinery and Boiler to Mr Slye. Prices each, 
small ones £22,000., the larger one £35,000., say twenty two thousand Pounds 
each for small ones, thirty five thousand five hundred Pounds for large one. 
Delivery of first small one in five and a half months and second in seven 
months. Large one in nine months from this date. Penalty for non delivery 
fifteen pounds per day and a premium of fifteen for each day within time. 
Instalments in 3 payments, one fifth in signing hereof, 2/5 on each ship, as she 
is plated, remainder, each ship when furnished and approved of. No extras. 

We are dear Sir 
Yours truly 

William Denny and Brothers. 3 

Accepted 

James Carlin 

From Port Muck, Island Magee, Ireland, under date February 
10, 1864, is a letter from Capt. Carlin to the president of the Import- 
ing & Exporting Co. of South Carolina, in which the above contract 
was inclosed and where appear in detail his investigations of the 
various shipyards of the United Kingdom, visited by him in behalf 
of the company: Stockton on Tees, Middlesboro, Hartlepool, Liver- 
pool (where he mentions being on the trial trip of Frasier's new 
steel ship under command of Capt. Hammer), Glasgow, Newcastle on 
Tyne, and finally Dumbarton, where the order was given. The 
builders of many of the most noted blockade runners of the earlier 
period are all mentioned as having been interviewed, and from this 



1 Confederacy currency tables. 

2 Synopsis of account of Importing & Exporting Co. of South Carolina, with James 
Calder. 

3 Original contract. 



CHARLESTON DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 175 

letter it appears that the Confederate government or the State of 
South Carolina was connected with the business; for, to the president 
of the company, who contemplated resigning and later did resign, he 
writes : " You must not think of deserting us in our infancy and with 
the State as a partner.'' He also, in this letter, indicates the dis- 
advantages attending any purchases of existing types of vessels, of 
these " the Dover boats being the nearest to what would suit our 
business. They would cost a great deal and need various alterations 
for the trade that would be expensive and take a great deal of time." 
He adds, <; I should not like to buy unless there were a near approach 
to perfection. The ship built for Frasier at Liverpool is a failure 
in speed and draft, and instead of drawing 8 feet will draw 10; 
otherwise she is a fine ship, very far from perfection, however." * 

Capt. Carlin's visit to Great Britain was probably due not only to 
a considerable widening of the activities of the company through 
the participation therein of southern railroads, as well as the Con- 
federate government, but, in addition to the capture just prior 
thereto of the most successful of the company's fleet, operating 
between Charleston, Wilmington, Nassau, and Bermuda, on an at- # 
tempt, about the last of October or the first of November, 1863, to 
enter Wilmington. On her last outward trip from Charleston to 
Bermuda the value of her cargo is put by her master at $143,000; 
passenger fares, $3,000. 2 But if her capacity for cotton was fully 
utilized, as he also claims, the value of that alone, by account sales 
subsequently rendered, must have been $296,400. The " partner- 
ship " of the Confederate government was evidently one of those 
euphemistic terms by which governments at a pinch help themselves. 
The Boers coined an excellent word for it, "commandeer." With 
regard to the blockade runners from Charleston, it was, in the last 
18 months of the war, a claim for half of the profits, and I think 
quite properly so. 

Master's pay seems to have been as follows: From August, 1863, 
bringing steamer from Nassau to Charleston, $8,000, Confederate 
currency (about $600 in gold) ; taking steamer out to Nassau, $2,000, 
payable at Nassau; from Nassau to Wilmington, N. C, $10,000; 
Wilmington to Bermuda, $2,500. 3 

The first of the steamers contracted for with William Denny & 
Bros, is announced as sailing July 30, 1864, drawing 8 feet, with 
550 tons dead weight on board, which Capt. Carlin writes he re- 
gards as remarkable and only fears that her return cargo of cotton 
may not sink her deep enough, as she should draw at least 6 feet, 
and better still, 7 feet 2 inches on an even keel. 4 From the same letter 

1 Letter of Capt. James Carlin to William C. Bee, Feb. 10. 1864 

2 Letter of F. N. Bonneau, Dec. 10, 1864. 

3 Statement of Capt. Carlin, Aug. 25, 1863. 
* Letter of Capt. Carlin, July 30, 1864. 



176 AMEBIC AN" HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

it appears that as the vessels were completed they were fitted out, 
manned, and officered by Capt. Carlin, who kept a full complement 
on shore pay to meet all requirements; and by the disbursement 
sheets of the agent at Nassau, May, 18G5, there were then operating 
from that port the Alice, the Caroline, the Emily, and the Fannie. 1 
The Ella does not appear on this, and in December, 1864, Capt. 
Bonneau alludes to his regret at hearing of her loss; but as, in 
another letter, he states that the loss of the Ella and Annie was the 
only loss suffered by the company he may have been mistaken. The 
five vessels above named, however, did not represent all that the 
company was operating ; for in the final accounting of the Liverpool 
agent in December, 1865, appear charges referring to the Flying 
Scud, the Wild Pigeon, the Monmouth, the B. De Wolf, the Fearless, 
the Frygia, the Pleiades, the Troya, the Pembroke, the Crocodile, the 
Storm King, the Enterprise, the Orizava, the Pink, the Electra, the 
Maria, the Orion, the Mary Garland, the Urania, the Star of the 
East, the Ariosto, and the Harriet. 2 But around none centers that 
personal interest which attaches to the Ella and Annie, a fairly 
.accurate representation of which has been preserved in a faded 
water-color sketch made just prior to her capture. She was, as 
appears, painted a cream white, an absolutely new departure from 
accustomed ideas up to her appearance, the prevailing color until 
then, as I have been informed, having been black, and the experiment 
of her coat being due to the advice of Capt. Carlin, who insisted that 
cream white was the most invisible of shades. In the letter of the 
retiring president of the company I note an allusion to the courage 
displayed by her captain on the night of her capture, and, whether 
somewhat apocryphal in its details or not, I shall venture the short 
account told me by the last president of the company, as an illustra- 
tion of how gallantly and chivalrously war may be waged by fear- 
less combatants. 

On the night that his vessel was overhauled, seeing that his capture 
was otherwise inevitable, Capt. Bonneau put on all steam and steered 
for the nearest of the captors in the desperate hope of escaping over 
her rammed and sinking hulk, for which acknowledged design he 
was, on trial by court-martial, condemned to death, which sentence 
was blandly set aside by the United States admiral presiding, with 
the calm declaration that in Bonneau's place he would have done 
the same thing himself. 

Fifty years have passed since those stirring times, and in all 
probability many of the captors with their gallant old chief have 
long since gone to " the reconciling grave that swallows up distinc- 
tions that first made us foes," but the captured captain still lives, an 
illustration of the chances of war. 

1 Statement of disbursements of Henry Adderley & Co., May, 1865. 

2 Duplicate Importing & Exporting Co. in account with James Calder. 



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